a dollar off of it, which I agreed to, and we didn't get into real details," Tur- ner said "I asked him what he fore- saw for me. . . . It was clear. . . that he was going to be the head honcho, but I agreed to it." Turner asked that the combined companies be called Time Warner Turner; Levin refused. He also asked for the title of vice-chairman. Levin didn't agree to that, either. But he pointed out that, after the deal, Tur- ner would be the largest shareholder in Time Warner and could have two seats on the board. The two discussed the possible reac- tion of Malone, whose stake in Tur- ner, and position on the board, gave him the power to block the deal. Strong- willed, independent, and disliking pub- licity; Malone had assembled the nation's largest cable system by out-bargaining other cable operators, a notoriously free- wheeling group, and had become a billionaire. He took equally tough po- sitions with cable-network operators, at one point throwing Viacom's VHl network off his Denver cable systems. Malone didn't like surprises, and his sometimes volatile temperament was perceived as a risk to the deal. Accord- ing to Levin, both he and Turner were concerned that Malone "might not be happy about" the deal, since Malone's stake in the merged Time Warner would be so diluted that he would have little influence. The whole discussion, Turner esti- mated, lasted just thirty minutes to an hour. Still, it was "a very traumatic expe- rience, selling your company after thirty- five years," he said. "I was not myself for months afterwards." Later that day, or the next, Turner called Milken with the news. "I told him everything of substance and conse- quence," Turner recalled. "1' m not the kind that holds anything back." Not sur- prisingly, Milken, given his previous ef- forts to convince Turner that he was too small to compete, was enthusiastic. "I felt this was a great idea," Milken said. The sale, of course, ended discussions with Intel, Microsoft, and G.E. Milken couldn't take credit for orig- inating the transaction, but he could still "facilitate" it, as Turner put it. Tur- ner asked Milken to "help me get it through," by persuading John Malone to support the deal. "Clearly, he knew 56 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 22, 2001 John very well, and John really thinks highly of Milken," Turner said. "All of the good businesspeople do. It was only a logical extension of that that he would help us facilitate this very complex and difficult to put together . " transactIon. Milken and Turner agreed that Tur- ner should be the one to tell Malone. (Turner explained, "You don't break up with your wife with your lawyer there. You tell her personall)T. You know, she might break down.") Turner did break the news to Malone, in an early- morning phone call. "He was speech- less for a long period of time, which is very unusual for John," Turner said. "He wanted to think about it for a few days." Two days after Levin flew to Bozeman, Milken joined Turner in a conference call with Malone, in the first of numerous conversations. Milken flew twice to Denver to meet with Malone, sitting in on the first critical, face-to- face meeting between Levin and Ma- lone. They also met at least once in At- lanta. Milken's goals were to persuade Malone of the benefits of the merger and to develop a rapport between him and Levin. Milken testified that he was careful not to discuss securities issues that might violate his consent decree. At one meeting, he said, "I put up my hand and said, 'Hey; John, we are not here to discuss securities. That's not fu . ,,, our nction. Though these meetings seemed to go well, Milken reported to Levin that Malone was experiencing a "psycholog- ical aversion" to going forward with the deal, because he "was feeling betrayed by Ted Turner after having helped him for so many years." Milken arranged another meeting with Levin and Ma- lone in New York, in September, at the same time as one of his CAP CURE fund- raising dinners. Before the meeting, Milken told Levin that it was Malone's wedding anniversary, and that he should be sure to congratulate him. Malone was a "family man," Milken said, and Levin shouldn't neglect the "human side of John Malone." The approach appears to have worked, and Malone finally signed off on the merger. Turner recalled that Milken talked to Malone repeatedly, and "tried to get him to calm down and not be emotIonal and concentrate on the business aspects of the transac- hon. . . . John and Gerry both knew that Mike was primarily working for me and for the management of the Turner Broadcasting System, but the respect that both of those parties held him in was so high that. . . they listened to him." Milken also succeeded in per- suading Levin to give Turner the title of vice-chairman. I t isn't clear when the subject of a fee for Milken entered the negotia- tions, but Levin's notes indicate that it was a subject for discussion with Ma- lone sometime before a meeting in Den- ver. Invoking the terms of the consult- ing agreement, Milken had proposed that Turner pay him a hundred million dollars-an extraordinary ten per cent of the value of the deal. Turner testified that he couldn't re- member when Milken had broached the subject of the fee, but he said that the request left him "speechless," and that he thought it was an "egregious" amount. "I didn't say no, because I didn't feel I had the backdrop," he ex- plained. "I wanted to talk with John and Gerry and the rest of the board." Turner added that he couldn't remember much about the circumstances of the request, because "} went into traumatic shock afterwards." "Do you remember where you were?" an S.E.C.lawyer asked. " I d ' b " on t remem er. . . "When you went into this?" ". . . where I was, or I blacked out." "Do you remember where you were when you blacked out?" " N I d ", T . d " I . 0, on t, urner sal. Just blacked out mentall)T." Turner said that Levin was similarly shocked. "I guess just about anybody would be with a fee at that level," he said. The Turner Broadcasting board balked at a payment of a hundred mil- lion dollars, settling on forty million, in- stead. Turner offered to contribute an additional ten million out of his own pocket, so that Milken would receive hili his requested amount. The lead in- vestment bankers for Turner-Credit Suisse First Boston and Merrill Lynch- together received six million. On being asked to justifY the fifty-million-dollar (/) payment to Milken, Turner said, "They helped me immeasurably and I really